Seventeenth-century England was a time of change that witnessed a proliferation of religious sects following the 16th-century English Reformation, the bloodshed of civil war, the political confusion of the interregnum period, and the optimism and uncertainty of the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy. The proposed lecture series analyzes the contribution of these events to the socio-political English context as evidenced by the enactment and reissuance of restrictive legislation. For example, the Clarendon Code (1661-1665), which limited matriculation at and knowledge acquisition from the English universities, Oxford and Cambridge that incentivized the establishment or progression of Gresham College and Chetham’s Library.